Hall of Fame
by Agooddoseofrandomness
Summary: A cofagrigus is captured by scientists for experiments of modifying the code of the game and slips into the data of the game, or the 'program', a place which seems post apocalyptic, where he meets MissingNo, a lonely pokemon who shares the program with nobody but himself and aimless, zombie like pokemon.
1. Chapter 1

Have you ever been hunted? I never had, not as a human, not as a pokemon. For all my life, I had always been able to talk my way out of situations and never had to fight nor defend myself. As a pokemon, I let small pokemon take refuge from sandstorms inside my hollow body and never turned anyone into a mummy. I tried to do good deeds to others. Even when I was mocked by other cofagrigus I still tried to be a good pokemon. As a human I consider myself an ancient gentleman, never catcalled a woman, had made sure my children studied, I always thought I was good. So how did It end up with me being attacked by a Chandelure, fleeing for an hour, then cornered and forced to fight? That's what was happening right now, _fighting_. I never trained because I never felt like I had too, and this Chandelure was strong, and had hit me with hex, hard. In defence, I shot a shadow ball at him, but even in the midst of a sandstorm he had dodged and struck me with hex once again. Then my lid shut and I fell from the air where I was hovering. I had lost. It was dark, only the howling of a sandstorm in the background that slowly faded to a low drone as I hit the sand, then nothing at all.

 _ **Hall of Fame**_

Cofagrigus woke up in shifts. First he became aware of the buzzing of artificial light, then he felt the noticeable drop in air temperature, cooling his body of gold. Lastly came the sickening nausea of powerful medicine. The air stung with the scent of disinfectant and cleanliness as Cofagrigus opened his red eyes. He groaned and immediately slammed his eyes shut again as the powerful white light above him hurt. He did end up hovering slightly above the ground, two of his arms free. He examined the room he was in, doing a full 360 degree turn. It was painfully bare, with four blindingly white walls and a white tiled floor. The only thing that caught his attention was a window which he could barely see blurry shapes running back and forth, whispering about him on the other side. "Remember.." cofagrigus could only catch snippets of conversation from those who stood to close to the glass. ".. not recover.. must not die.. ." someone said,

"that's easy… say .. . experimented... .. advanced specimen.." another responded.

Cofagrigus fluctuated in the air in concern for himself, the words " must not die " and " experiments " gave him chills. He stopped focusing on the whispers and focused on the rest of the room. There seemed to be no way out, and nothing to do to pass the time. There didn't even seem to be a door! He pressed one of his hands against the wall and felt around. He tried to feel for cracks or a difference in texture and circled the whole room. Only then did he notice hair sized cracks of a door in the wall. "So that is one mystery solved" he said out loud and jumped back suddenly when a voice came from the other side. "hello number 0-0-0, you must be surprised at the current situation!" the voice said and Cofagrigus frowned in annoyance, it would have helped a lot if they had been this friendly and simply told him to follow. "Then again" cofagrigus thought, "If they had to use that much force, maybe i wouldn't like what they are doing, or, what their doing to _me_ " the voice continued on " you are one lucky pokemon, number 0-0-0, you have been chosen for special scientific research on the mysterious inner powers that pokemon hold." if cofagrigus could turn his head to the side like a dog, he would. He hardly considered himself to be lucky at the moment and The only thing stopping him from trying to bust out of here was the dying hope that whatever they were going to do, he would be unharmed and returned to the wild soon after. Maybe even get a trainer to travel around the world with. He had to give out a chuckle at that, all Cofagrigus were stereotyped into the 'evil' pokemon category of pokemon by humans (Of course, he knows firsthand that many _do_ fit into this category.) they were said to turn on their trainers unless they were caught as Yamask by birth and raised with quite a bit of human contact. Even in his later years, other pokemon tended to run from him when he came near, his only friends being a sigilyph and two sandile, the quartet promising to travel the world together. His thoughts were so consumed by worry of his friends well being that it was a full minute before he realized that the voice was _still_ talking. He noted two types of stones called z crystals and mega stones. The voice droned on about Cofagrigus, about how he was "significantly more difficult to capture, not because you tried to pick a fight, in fact it was because you ran away." it would try to compliment cofagrigus as well, although the compliments would normally make cofagrigus a very happy pokemon, right now it didn't seem to faze him. The only thing that really caught his attention was the last part of the half hearted flattery _. "_ You will be released into the main building in three hours. Please get used to your living conditions for the next few months."


	2. Chapter 2

**_Please note that I dont know french, I can only be as accurate as google translate can rip me h a._**

Cofagrigus blinked, "The next, the next few _Months?!_ " he said out loud, although later he would realize that they probably only heard him say his own name. He didn't want to be here for months. He started to paced around the room, and the more he circled around it the more his worry grew into panic. He tried to control his breathing that had been unsteady. He grew tired from circling the room for what felt like a lifetime, and He let out a yelp as he heard very loud mechanical whirring from behind him and spun around to see what was going on.

The door he had found earlier had opened up wide, and dark oak paneling could be seen from behind the doorway. Cofagrigus flew out of the room fast than a Alolan vulpix with its tail on fire. The hallway eventually gave away to a large room with a fireplace and a few chairs, a coffee table, three doors and a large trunk. Cofagrigus decided to check the trunk first. It had a lock on it that was locked, but the lock seemed so old and busted up that it fell away when Cofagrigus applied a little more force than normal.

He quickly flipped open the latches. Inside was nothing but a old photograph, amber colored and grey with dust. It showed a small boy in overalls sitting on a ledge over water on a street lined with stores and shops, with a large building being constructed in the background. It seemed like a normal photo, but then something caught Cofagrigus's eye. A large, L-shaped blur in the photograph was present, one would think that it was only a blemish in the picture, but the blur was too squared off and large to be a mistake, and it seemed to distort the building behind it. Cofagrigus was careful to handle it. He eventually decided to use his hollow body as a storage for important items, for now. And right now he deemed this photograph important.

He then decided to open all the doors and choose which one to go into first. Cofagrigus pulled open the left door. Inside was a large dining hall, with an excessive amount of gold accenting everything and large, red, velvety curtains. The middle one was locked. The last one was a library. He decided to go into the first room.

Cofagrigus floated over to the window and pulled open the curtain, He has lost all track of time and wanted to know where he was, only to get solid black glass on the other side. He felt uncomfortable standing in front of it. Without being told, he knew it was one sided glass. He could feel the eyes starring back at him. Cofagrigus quickly shut the curtains and left the room, knowing he would never be able to go into that room comfortably anymore. then He entered the library. It was quite large. With two stories of bookshelves, a fireplace that was lit, and green chairs. He moved towards the fireplace to recollect himself. Then he grabbed the photograph and examined it for some sort of date, or anything of interest. The only thing he could make out was wording on a sign.

 _Bienvenue à Lumiose City! Où la fine cuisine et la mode est toujours trouvé!_

He squinted at the sign.

He didn't know what language it was in, and looked around carefully. He decided to look through the books and see what he could find. As he looked around, nothing came into interest. There were so many books there he wouldn't have time to go through them all.

 _Unova legends,The sun and The moon, the adventures of deoxys._ Cofagrigus read each title carefully and it took him three bookshelves to realize that he was in the fiction section. He grunted to himself and moved on, his eyes scanned across labels of many kinds until he found what he was looking for, nonfiction. Except, what was he was looking for exactly? He scanned over each book, many being large, 200 page books about different species of pokemon. Eventually, he found a group of archives. There was four of them, and they looked like normal shelves, but they were on slides, and you pulled them close together or apart. Cofagrigus looked at all the labels, each neatly written.

 _Aether documents, Z crystals and Mega stones, MissingNo, Data And coding._

Cofagrigus opened z crystals and mega stones first, it was extremely light, and when cofagrigus opened it he figured out why. There was only two larger books, one for each kind of stone, but the rest of the archive was filled with paper, sloppily placed as if somebody was hurrying to shove as many papers as they could into it. Most piles were held down by paperweights, but some slipped out. Cofagrigus gathered the escaping pages and placed them inside his golden interior. He shut it, then the archive, not wanting to re open it lest everything fall out. He opened the MissingNo archive, being met with the same chaotic disaster as before. This time, cofagrigus grabbed the single book inside of the archive. He closed that and moved onto the next.

 _Data and coding_.

He tugged, thinking It would also be disorganized and messy. But It was heavier, and looked as neat as a normal archive. Cofagrigus looked through it, his hand gliding over the spines of the books as he struggled to choose something to look at first. Cofagrigus grabbed the first few books. He stored them away but decided to stop at that, He was starting to get weighted down. He grabbed Another book and started flipping through the pages. It seemed like gibberish on a page, and not really anything cofagrigus could understand. He could understand that there seemed to be a pattern of some sort, but if he were to look back upon it, he wouldn't be able to tell you what. He tried to examine the last archive's contents thoroughly, But the more he read them the more the place made him feel uneasy. Tales about fusion with pokemon and ultra beasts and other seemingly painful experiments. The conversation he overheard from behind the glass passed through his mind, and he quickly shut the book and returned it to its place. He didn't want to read it anymore. He didn't want to be here anymore.

 **Hey guys! I have to** **apologize for how painstakingly long this chapter took to get out,, I hope that it wont take this long in the future, But I had hit a huge amount of writing block at the end of the chapter, so I'm sorry If the writing style seems to fluctuate. Thanks for sticking with me! 3**


	3. Chapter 3

Cofagrigus Decided to go back to the main part of the library. He pulled out the book he had taken from the MissingNo archive and read a paragraph from the middle.

 _Within the program we have created what appears to be a new type of pokemon type. It appears to be the remains of excess universe, or maybe a different time. We had captured many of these of these pokemon, one named it 'M. 'M's form had not been able to survive the transition from the program to reality, but unlike the others, which had disappeared from time forever, it had evolved into a kangaskhan. Further research is being conducted on it. Only one of these pokemon had been successfully transferred, and Since It seemingly takes up extra space that isn't occupied by any other form in the program, we have named it Missing Number._

 _Additionally, it can be found in many forms._

 _When it was first created and discovered, it had the appearance of fossils. However, when we tried to catch it, it fled, and changed forms, to seemingly throw us off guard. It had the appearance of a pokemon we had never seen before, but looked similar to a ghastly._

 _When we had fought it once again, it appeared as a garbled, yellow and red wall of coding._

 _This form is_ _ **Not**_ _safe to approach. Lives were almost lost._

 _When we had caught it, it changed form one more time._

 _It became a second wall of coding, shaped like a backwards L, just like 'M._

Cofagrigus inhaled sharply. Is that what was in the picture? why can something as strange as Missing Number Be able to even exist?

 _Three weeks later, Missing Number was A threat to reality, we had to release it back into the program. Research has been funded to find a safe way to send a pokemon to the program._

He fumbled around with the book, not wanting to read further. He stashed it way and laid on the floor. It was cold and hard and was uncomfortable compared to the warm sand at the ruins. The thought of the ruins made him miss his home. He felt tired, not wanting to get up from his spot on the ground. Sighing, he closed his eyes.

 _ **Hall of Fame**_

He must have slept for a few hours. But he still had no sense of what time it was and frankly, it was already starting to drive him mad. His metal body felt cold and he grew alarmed, not knowing where he was. It took him a few seconds before he realized that he was on the floor, in the library. The fire had gone out, which unnerved cofagrigus to no end.

" _Did it run out of fuel or..?"_

He didn't like the idea of somebody else coming into the room with him while he was asleep. Cofagrigus floated over to the fire, placing his hand on one of the logs. It was warm, but not as if it was just put out. He retracted his hand from the log as he heard footsteps walking down the hall. He grew panicky as The person, or pokemon, got closer. When the person actually did arrive, Cofagrigus wasn't any less afraid. It was a large man in all white clothing and a hat, and too many pockets for cofagrigus. Next to him stood a chandelure, the same one that was used to bring cofagrigus here in the first place. "Don't you know not to keep fires burning all night? You really are a lousy pokemon, not just in physical strength, but in mental capacity too" Cofagrigus turned his head over to the chandelure, his trainer not reacting to it at all, just boredly chewing gum. "You need to come with us. I bet you've gotten pretty bored here, reading all that factual junk." the trainer spoke with half lidded eyes, his pokemon snickering as cofagrigus walked by. "Factual junk? Heh, didn't think you'd understand it." all cofagrigus could do was glare. He didn't want to anger the chandelier pokemon, for it was far stronger than him, but it's snarky comments were getting on his nerves. Cofagrigus didn't like how they were so intent to keep him moving forward, and he didn't like that they were going back to the white room. "Okay, buddy, I know that you are probably not fond of this room, but we have to do some tests." the trainer trailed off. Cofagrigus looked at the name tag of the trainer, wondering what to call him.

 _Clyde Johnson  
_ "-To make sure your healthy, of course! We don't want to stress you out too much if you not healthy, right chandelure?" The chandelure nodded genuinely, but when it spoke its voice dripped with sarcasm, "Suuurre, normally, we wouldn't health check such a strong species of pokemon, but you're special." cofagrigus clenched his jaw, a voice of protest rising. "Just because I'm not a trained circus pet like you doesnt mean Im any less better. I have something you don't. a heart." the chandelure narrowed its eyes at cofagrigus. He knew that the other pokemon couldn't harm him, but wanted too. Clyde could sense the tension, and quickly but lightly pushed his pokemon out of the room. "Anyways the tests are about to start, you'll be fine."

And he shut the door.

Cofagrigus's imediate instinct was to go over to the one sided window where he could here people. This time, they didn't seem to remember that he could hear him. "Start?" A voice, that cofagrigus recognized to be clyde's, asked. "Start." he inhaled slightly, but nothing happened. He felt nothing, but He knew something happened. It felt like the air stirred. "He's such a underleveled pokemon, It's a wonder that he even put up a fight at all" cofagrigus stared at the window, at least they talked in what they thought was private. He moved away from the window, and he tried to put everything together.

They want to catch missing number.

Probably to experiment on.

And they wanted a pokemon to go and get it, but need to change something about them.

Cofagrigus swallowed, _Why can't they just leave me and that poor Pokemon alone. Why do humans have to stick their nose in everything?_

Cofagrigus didn't want to be here anymore. Not. at. All. His breathing grew irregular as he began to panic. _I have to get out of here._ He brought his top hands together, a ball of dark, pulsing energy growing between them. He quickly throw the energy at the window, a large bang resonating in the room. A small scratch was all that had been left on the glass. So he did it again. Nothing but a few small scratches. He exhaled as a yelp of surprise came from the other side of the glass. He knew he had a time limit. He knew just how strong other pokemon were compared to him. But he wanted _Out_. inhaling, Cofagrigus floated backwards, then propelled himself forward as he slammed full force into the glass, the wind knocking out of him as he broke through it. They expected Shadow ball, they didn't expect giga impact. Cofagrigus shakingly floated upwards, Nobody was in the room, _They probably left after they realised that I was trying to get out._ Cofagrigus thought, _They're probably outside the room, too._ Struggling to catch his breathe, he flew out the room and into the rest of the laboratory. It was a large hallway, and he could barely believe that it had been so.. _Easy_ to get out. _How stupid could they be?_ He thought. They could research a new pokemon species in a different universe, but they couldn't prepare for a normal pokemon run away.

The next few moments could only be described as one connected event.

He could hear the shuffling of somebody running. Then yelling. And without thinking he opened the nearest door and pushed himself inside and slammed it shut. It was quiet for a small moment. _Think, cofagrigus, think. What would sigilyph do?_ He idolized his psychic/flying friend very much. He recalled an old conversation they had together as he scanned the room for anything that might help him.

 _Cofagrigus looked over at the avianoid pokemon tending the many light scratches in his golden exterior. "Seriously? Did you fall out of a turnip truck? Think through that thick coffin of yours." cofagrigus looked away, embarrassed, "But..! that pokemon. It was in danger!" The Sigilyph sighed and shook his head. "You tried to save a steel type pokemon from the sandstorm. Your main disadvantage isn't your strength, Cofagrigus, it's your taste for adventure and your empathy. You try to jump head first into things without thinking about it and end up hurting yourself rather than solving the problem. Wasn't that the reason for your demise as a human?" cofagrigus only huffed in response. Even though it was many moons ago, he still did not like to talk about being human._

Cofagrigus's eyes followed the wall absentmindedly, so deep in his thoughts he seemed to be barely aware that he was still being chased. A large machine that took up most of one wall was connected to what looked like a different room, entering it, he saw what the large machine was really connected with. It looked as simple as a steel box covered in fancy light, but the whirring and buzzing inside made cofagrigus realize that it did much more than look ugly on the side of the room. As he approached it, the lab door swung open and chandelure's voice rang out. "Hey, I know you're inside, you left the Gate machine's door open." he could see the purplish light come closer to the second door, and clenched his hand into a fist. "Hey, Stay away from that, you don't know what that is." the chandelure seemed to not want to use a move in the room, and it seemed to stay at the doorway. _Wait. does he not want to break this machine?_ Suddenly escape seemed like a very real thing. Gently raising his hand over the machine, and lightly patted it. "What? This thing? Is THIS what you want me to stay away from?" The chandelure was once again in a state of I-want-to-throttle-him-but-can't annoyance, and sharply replied. "Yes, THAT thing. Stop touching it." cofagrigus raised his hand up, a small ball of energy forming in the palm of it. "Let me go then. And you will never have to see me blow this thing to pieces." The other pokemon let out a soft but audible gasp. "You can't. You don't know what could happen. _WE_ don't know what could happen!" cofagrigus had a small flashback to the conversation that took place many years ago.

" _Your main disadvantage isn't your strength, Cofagrigus."_

Then he slammed the ball of pure energy into the machine, which while made of steel, its delicate inner workings had no hope against even the weakest pokemon.

It was almost as if his arm became a firecracker, and if you were to watch the next 5 seconds in slow motion you might have been able to see the bluish-white spark travel up his arm. In a panic, the chandelure fled while slamming both doors behind him. The whole machine was intensely bright inside. Later cofagrigus would swear up and down it was leaking pure light like a liquid. The shock made him dizzy.

" _Your main disadvantage isn't your strength, Cofagrigus, it's your taste for adventure"_

The room felt like it was swaying underneath him, and a buzz became a voice, and its whispers became yells. The roaring machine became as loud as a sandstorm. Then the sandstorm became silent one last time.

 ** _Sorry that this one took so long guys, I had writers block halfway through this chapter. I'd like to lie and say things will come out faster from now on but I said that last time and am really unconfident that things will get out regularly, because the school year is ending and we are going to start finals the day after this chapter is posted. but I will work on this as much as I can!_**


End file.
